Even We Will Be Saved
by Vermonster
Summary: A  possible  one-shot of what happened at the end of "Surface Tension." If you like Ezra... you probably shouldn't read.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I own nothing, I just like playing with the characters.

So I started this out as a one shot, but now I'm not so sure ... so I'm going to leave it up to you guys. Review and let me know if you would like to read more or if I should just leave it as a one-shot!

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><p><em>We can't trust Garrett! Call me!<em> Aria stared at the text message she had sent Spencer, according to her phone Spencer had gotten the message, but it had been almost an hour and she still hadn't responded yet. What if she was in trouble? What if she had been with Garrett and he had hurt her. "No," Aria muttered to herself, forcing herself to stop pacing back and forth across her room, worrying wasn't going to help her at all. She needed to focus on something else, anything else.

Unfortunately the only thing to focus on in her house at the moment was her parents yelling at her brother. Mike ... Aria sighed when she thought about her younger brother, he had promised her that he was done breaking into houses, he had looked her straight in the eye and lied to her. Jason had said that Mike probably meant his promise when he made it, but the more Aria thought about it the more she knew that was wrong. Mike had lied to her, and he had known that he was doing it.

After everything that she and Jason had done for Mike he had betrayed their trust and he didn't even seem upset about it. Jason who had cared enough about Mike that he hadn't called the cops when he caught him trying to break into the house and Aria who hadn't told her parents about it ... had Mike even said thank you? Aria shook her head, answering her own silent question.

She turned to her desk where Jenna's candle holder sat and she shuddered. Jenna had been pretty quiet over the last few months, but that did not make the girls trust her any more than they ever had and it worried Aria that the blind girl was involved with the cop that they had dragged into the A drama. No good could really come from that. Aria shook her head again, she couldn't think about Jenna because that made her think about Garrett which made her worry about Spencer again.

She quickly turned toward her dresser and opened one of her drawers, pulling out a tank top and a pair of black yoga pants. If she was going to spend the rest of her evening in her room worrying and pacing she might as well be comfortable. She changed out of the dress and heels she had been wearing for the dinner that never happened and pulled on her comfortable clothes. She was pulling her hair into a messy bun when her phone beeped from her bed, letting her know she had a new text message. She ran to her phone and picked it up, hoping the text message would be from Spencer, but it wasn't.

_For once Aria's not the problem child. I wonder how upset Mommy and Daddy would be if they found out just how comfortable Pookiebear was with calling her former teacher "Ezra." - A. _As if the message itself didn't shake Aria enough there was an attachment at the bottom of the message, Aria opened it to see a picture of her and Ezra kissing in his classroom at Rosewood high school. So much for baby steps, if her parents ever saw that picture Ezra would never be allowed near her, if her father had his way her boyfriend would end up in prison and she would never be allowed to leave the house again.

Aria quickly deleted the text message, she knew that didn't really matter, whoever_ A _was still had the picture, but it made her feel better to know that the evidence was no longer on her phone. But what was _A_ getting at? What did she want? The girls had decided that _A_ was now bent on keeping the girls quiet, but Aria didn't need to be threatened to keep quiet ... was that text even a threat? Aria shook her head and grabbed a hooded zippered sweatshirt that she had taken from Mike before all the drama started and threw it on over her tank top, suddenly her room had begun to feel claustrophobic, she needed to get out of her house and go ... anywhere.

Her parents were still yelling at Mike so it was fairly simple for her to sneak out the front door and into the night. The wind had picked up and it had started to rain. "Just perfect," Aria muttered to herself as she started a slow jog down the street. She wasn't as athletic as Spencer or Emily, but jogging had always helped calm her down. And she was amazed when she realized that even though the rain had seemed like a foreboding thing when she started her run she actually liked it.

She turned left at the end of her street, heading toward Spencer's house. Aria wouldn't go in and she was trying to convince herself that she wasn't worried about Spencer she figured she could run by the house to see if her friend's bedroom light was on. It wasn't, but that really wasn't that strange. Aria kept running for a few more minutes until she felt her phone buzz from the front pocket of her brother's jacket. She stopped running forward, but continued to jog in place while she pulled the phone out of her pocket to read the text.

Run, run as fast as you can, but you will never outrun me - A. Aria gasped and looked around the empty, dark street around her. _A _could see her, that bothered her more than anything else. She was alone, in the dark, and someone who was trying to terrorize her and her friends was close enough that they could recognize her. Aria gasped, this was scarier than any other text she had ever gotten from _A_ because she was alone, not close to her house, and no one knew where she was.

No one except _A_ that is.

Frightened tears began to fill Aria's eyes and she gasped, trying to gulp in some air, but it didn't work. No matter how hard Aria tried to breath, it was like she couldn't. She felt like she was drowning and about to pass out. She should keep running, to head back to her house, but she couldn't run if she couldn't even get her lungs to work properly. So instead she sat down on the curb to her right and lowered her head between her legs, trying to control her breathing and stop herself from hyperventilating. The rain that she had liked when she began her run now felt too cold, too harsh, as she began to imagine how her friends and family would react when her dead body was found the next morning.

Or maybe she would turn out like Allie. Maybe they wouldn't find her body. Maybe it would be years before they found her body and when they did find her they would realize that she had been buried in her back yard the entire time. Aria sobbed, trying to keep herself from thinking thoughts like that. Scaring herself to death was not going to help calm her down and get her out of her current situation. She just needed to calm down.

She took several more deep breaths, trying to force her lungs to start working again and calm herself down at the same time. But it wasn't working, nothing stopped the tears that were now streaming down her face or the feeling of terror that was clenching in her stomach. She was so stupid, she lived in a town where you couldn't trust anybody and she had decided to go for a run. By herself. At night. She really was an idiot. "Aria?" someone called through the rain, at first Aria was not sure that she had heard it correctly, she was convinced that her mind was just playing tricks on her, but then someone grabbed her shoulder. She screamed.

"Aria?" the voice asked again, soft, almost soothing, as if trying to quiet her scream just by saying her name. "Aria, are you okay? It's just me." Aria turned her head, expecting to see the elusive _A_, but instead she was met with Jason DiLaurentis's concerned face. She sobbed and threw herself into his surprised arms, clutching at him as if he could save her.

Jason silently wrapped his arms around her and pulled her closer to him, hugging her to his chest as she sobbed his name out in what sounded like relief. He pulled the jacket hood off her head so that he could run his hand through her wet hair as his other hand rubbed her back and he made soothing noises, trying to calm the girl down. When his family had lived in Rosewood he had always acted as if his younger sister and her little friends had annoyed him, but now that Allison was gone and he had grown up a bit he was able to admit to himself that there was a part of him that had always liked the girl who was now crying in his arms.

There had always been something special about her. Something different. Throughout her seventh grade year he had watched the way she would silently rebel against Allison's regime, unlike the other girls in the group. And he really had liked the pink streaks in her hair, they were one of the few things he really did remember from his pot-filled summer before his sister disappeared. "Aria?" he whispered after a few minutes, "are you okay?" Aria's hands balled around the fabric of his t-shirt, pulling him closer to her as if she was worried that he was going to pull away. She shook her head and continued to sob into his chest.

Jason nodded and pulled her even closer to him before he let go of her with one of his hands. Aria whimpered at the loss of contact and Jason smiled, pleased to know that she didn't want him to let go of her anymore than he wanted to let go. "I'm not going anywhere," he whispered, looping his free arm under her knees and carefully standing up. He really hadn't planned on leaving her, but he had decided that it would probably be best to get inside, he didn't want either of them to get sick. So he carried her back to his house and through the front door that he had left open when he went out to see if she was okay. He kicked the door closed behind him and sat down on the couch, cradling her in his lap for a few more minutes as her sobs and tears finally stopped.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, reaching out and trying to wipe some of the tear stains off of his shirt, "You're all wet."

"So are you," Jason said with a smirk, not letting go of her even though she wasn't clinging to him as if her life depended on it anymore. "Now are you going to tell me what you were doing outside my house crying in the rain or am I going to have to guess."

Aria sighed, she knew that she should be afraid or nervous. She and her friends weren't even sure if Jason had anything to do with Allie's death. And as Spencer had pointed out, the field hockey stick had been at their house, and it was kind of convenient that Jason didn't remember anything from that night. She should be running from his house screaming and calling the police, but for the first time, really since the girls had started getting texts from _A_, Aria finally felt safe. She lived in a town where the people who should be trusted - the police, fellow students, therapists - couldn't be. So why shouldn't she be able to trust someone who shouldn't be trusted? In a weird way, it almost made sense, everything was backwards, and nothing was what it seemed. Noel had seemed safe and he wasn't. Garrett had seemed safe and he definitely wasn't. Ezra had always felt safe to her, but now even he didn't feel safe. Toby had seemed dangerous and so had Caleb, but both of them turned out to be safe. Why couldn't the same thing happen with Jason? It really did fell like it made sense.

"Aria?" Jason asked, he was fine with waiting for her answer, but he had been watching her face as she thought over everything that was going on in her head and she looked upset. The last thing he wanted was for her to start crying again. "What's going on?"

"I just wanted to feel ... safe," Aria whispered, smiling up at him when she realized that she was telling him the absolute truth.

"Safe?" Jason asked, raising his eyebrows and leaning away from her so that he could really look at her. "From what?"

"From everything," she whispered and then before she knew what she was doing she had leaned in and placed a soft kiss on Jason's lips. She had expected him to pull away, to say that she was too young for him and that he didn't like her like that. She had expected him to protest and say something about her parents, her friends, or how the entire town seemed to be walking on egg shells around him. What she had not expected was for his arms to tighten ever so slightly around her and for him to kiss her back. The realization that he was kissing her back should have been enough to cause her to stop kissing him, but instead it was the encouragement she needed to wrap her arms around his neck and sit up properly in his lap so that neither of them had to strain their necks to kiss each other.

It was Jason who pulled away from her. "What about your boyfriend?" he asked, his breathing a little ragged as he rested his forehead against the younger girl's.

"What?" Aria asked, slightly dazed from the kiss they had just shared. "Who?"

"Your teacher?" Jason asked, a smirk resting on his lips. It became a full smile when he saw the shocked look on Aria's face. "Really, did you guys think you were being sneaky? I was in the same room with you guys for less than an hour and I picked up on it." There was a hint of pride to his voice, as if he wasn't scolding Aria for her behavior, but proud of her for pushing the envelope. "I mean, I don't really think he's right for you, but I don't understand why you're kissing me." He stopped himself from saying _not that I mind_. He didn't want to rush things, but he really did want to kiss Aria again.

Aria sighed and played with her fingers for a few silent minutes. "He's not ..." she started after a while. "He's not ..." she was about to say _safe_, but another word slipped out of her lips before she could stop herself. "you." And then before she could stop herself, before Jason could even ask her to explain what she meant she began to explain. "I mean, you and I ... we know each other. A lot about each other actually. I don't have to explain why I do certain things to you, you already know because you understand me. I think it's the same way for you. And I was just ... I was scared tonight and I needed someone to hold me and tell me that everything was okay, and ... I wasn't hoping to find you, but I did. And ..." Jason's hand slipped under her chin, gently forcing her to look up at him.

"And what?" he asked, his blue eyes searching her face for the answer that she seemed to not want to give him. "What Aria?" he asked again, this time he sounded a bit more urgent.

"And you make me feel safe," she whispered. This time it wasn't Aria who captured Jason's lips, but the other way around. The kiss started out soft, but soon became harder, more urgent, more filled with need. Aria was enjoying it more than she would care to admit the next morning, but she was beginning to realize that there was a difference between how she felt when she kissed Ezra and when she kissed Jason. With Ezra she felt happy and loved. But with Jason she felt safe, needed, loved, and almost as if she wouldn't know what to do with herself if he pulled away. She gasped into his mouth when she realized that she needed him as much as he seemed to need her.

The next morning she would regret opening up to him and kissing him. She wouldn't know what to do when she saw Ezra or her friends. Her friends would be angry at her and worried for her and try to convince her that Jason was a bad guy, someone she couldn't trust. She knew all of this and yet, she couldn't bring herself to pull away from him. She would deal with tomorrow ... tomorrow. But for now she would continue to kiss Jason and she would finally feel safe.

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><p>And that's all I've got for now.<br>Let me know what you think.  
>Reviews = Love.<p> 


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I own nothing. I'd love to play with Jason for a while though... he's my kind of guy.

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><p>Aria stayed with Jason for another hour although they did not kiss any more. It had occurred to her after the second time they kissed that she still had a boyfriend, a boyfriend who she wasn't entirely sure she wanted to break up with yet. They had simply sat on Jason's couch and watched <em>Friends<em> re-runs until eleven. Jason had let his arm settle on the back of the couch behind Aria's head and at the beginning of the second episode Aria found herself curling into Jason's stomach like she had done out in the rain. This was okay though, she decided, they were just cuddling after all, that was completely harmless. And yet, in the same breath she used to justify her own actions she forced herself not to think of how she would react if she found out that Ezra was cuddling with Jackie watching _Friends_ reruns. It wouldn't be a pretty reaction and she didn't like knowing that she was betraying his trust.

"Just forget about it," she whispered to herself during a commercial toward the end of the second episode. If she could just pretend that Ezra didn't exist for the rest of the night she could stop feeling guilty and then tomorrow she would pretend that she had never kissed Jason, better yet she would pretend that Jason didn't exist and then she wouldn't have to feel the guilt tomorrow either. "Forget about it," she whispered again, this time trying to sound more forceful.

"What?" Jason asked, turning his head toward the brunette who was settled against his stomach and chest. He placed a soft, barely there, kiss on the top of her head. "What did you say?" he asked again when the girl in question did not answer him.

"Nothing," Aria said brightly, turning to smile at the dirty blonde man. "But I should probably go home soon. My parents have probably realized that I'm missing and are really worried. They don't need the police to show up at our house for a second time tonight."

Jason nodded, agreeing with her and stood up from the couch. "At least let me drive you home," he said softly. "It's still raining out there and you've finally begun to dry off a bit. Let's keep it that way." Aria nodded and Jason smiled almost shyly at her before walking to a closet in the front hall to grab an umbrella for the short walk out to his car.

Aria took the time he was gone as a chance to really look around the room she was standing in. When the DiLaurentises had lived here this had been their dining room. She could still see the eleven piece dining set that had once been sitting in the middle of this room. The room was situated in the right front corner of the house and had two walls that were filled with large floor to ceiling windows, it had once looked like an utterly elegant room, one that Allie had once said was her parents' favorite room because it, "was a chance to show their wealth off to anyone who happens to walk past my house," were Allie's exact words. The room had lost quite a bit of its elegance since Jason had moved in and for the most part it was more comfortable, and infinitely more simple. Jason had a television, two couches, a table, and three bookcases in the room and that was all. What made it feel uncomfortable was the fact that Jason had covered all of the huge floor to ceiling windows with newspaper and trash bags. It kind of reminded Aria of what frat boys did to the windows of their frat houses on made for t.v. movies so that the cops wouldn't be able to tell there was a party going on in the house. What was Jason trying to keep hidden from the outside world?

"Aria?" she heard from behind her. She quickly spun on her toes and came face to face with Jason. He was holding a dry sweatshirt in one hand and an umbrella in the other. "I've been calling your name for the last two or so minutes," Jason said, concern tinting his tone. "Are you okay?"

"What?" Aria asked, shaking herself out of her memory before nodding. "Yeah," she said with another nod, hoping that she was becoming more convincing with each passing second. "I'm fine, really."

Jason nodded and stepped further into the room, handing her the dry sweatshirt before silently gesturing to Mike's wet one. Aria quickly caught on to what he was silently telling her to do and she quickly unzipped Mike's sweatshirt, letting it drop to the floor with a wet sounding squish. "Thinking about when _she_ used to live here?" Jason asked as Aria slipped his sweatshirt over her head. He didn't have to say who "she" was, they both knew.

Aria nodded and looked around the room again, "Yeah," she said with a sad smile. "I was. It feels so different in here now," she added, but then she shook her head, taking back her own statement. "And yet, it feels exactly the same. It's strange. But I feel like if I were to walk up those stairs right now I would find her in her old bedroom, nothing would have been touched, it would be exactly the same as it always was." Jason nodded looking thoughtful. Aria decided to push her luck a bit, depending on the answer she got Spencer might even be proud of her for this. "You know, with all of her books, shoes, clothes, and sports stuff in the exact spots she left them."

"Sports stuff?" Jason asked, quirking his eyebrow at the younger girl wondering what drugs she had ingested since he had left the room to get the umbrella. "What are you talking about? Allie didn't really do sports."

"She was going to try," Aria pressed, taking a step closer to Jason. "The summer before she disappeared she borrowed one of Melissa's old field hockey sticks. She wanted to learn how to play because she was interested in a boy who was interested in field hockey." They were both silent for a moment before Jason shrugged.

"I don't remember Allie ever really having an interest in field hockey," he said, "I don't even remember that stick."

"You pretended like you were going to hit her with it once," Aria pushed, she was really pushing her luck this time. She reminded herself to take it slower and be less obvious after that statement, how he had reacted when she was asking him about the pictures for the tribute during the fashion show was still fresh in her mind. "She grabbed it back from you and tried to hit you with it, but you stopped her and told her that she wasn't going to get a _second chance_."

Jason stared at her for a moment before he shook his head. "You have a better memory than I do, Aria," he said as he began to lead her toward his front door. "Because I don't remember that interaction at all. I must have been really high."

"I remember things that scare me," Aria admitted quietly as she opened the door and stepped on to the porch. Jason followed her and opened the umbrella once he was standing on the porch. She looked up and saw that his face was tense and she realized what she had said, "Oh, Jason," she said softly, "I don't mean that you scared me, just that ... just that one time, because Mike had never been violent with me, up until a couple of weeks ago anyway."

"What?" Jason snapped, sounding upset as they walked toward his car. He walked her to the passenger side and opened the door for her as she climbed in before he ran back to the driver's side and climbed in himself, throwing the wet umbrella into the back seat. Then he turned to look back at Aria. "What do you mean Mike got violent with you? Did he hit you?"

Aria looked at the older man with wide surprised eyes for a moment before she shook her head quickly, trying to calm him down. "Now, well sort of, calm down, it's not like what it sounds."

"Then how was it, Aria?" Jason asked, still not moving the car, he hadn't even put the keys in the ignition yet. "What happened?"

Aria sighed, "A week or two before you caught him trying to break into your house he had broken into the Hastings'. I was headed over there to see Spencer and I had just walked in through the back door when this hooded person came running down the stairs. I was in their, or I guess _his_, way and he shoved me into a glass table before running off. It hurt pretty bad, but there was very little damage, to me at least, I can't say the same for the table."

Jason stared at her for a moment as if he was unsure about how she could be borderline sarcastic while talking about this before he shoved his key in the ignition and shifted the car into reverse so that he could back out of the driveway. His face was blank, but his eyes were cold and his hands were tense on the steering wheel. He looked dangerous, and yet Aria could not bring herself to feel afraid, she still felt safe sitting next to this man, even though he looked as though he were ready to kill someone. "Jason?" she asked, leaning forward so that she could reach out her hand and place it on top of one of his. "Are you okay?"

Jason took his hand off the steering wheel so that he could shift into drive before he started driving down the street toward Aria's road. This time he did not place the hand back on the steering wheel, but instead he placed it in between their two seats and reached out for Aria's hand. "I should have turned him in when I caught him," he growled. Aria shook her head as she placed her hand in his, silently trying to calm him down. Jason shook his head when he saw that Aria was shaking hers, "No, I should have," he said as he laced his fingers through hers. "No matter how messed up you are you do not hit a girl," he added squeezing Aria's hand as he said this. "Or push her into a glass table. I may have acted like I was going to hit Allie with that field hockey stick, but I can guarantee I never actually did."

"You don't have to do that," Aria said softly, "No one's trying to say that you did."

"Wasn't that what you were trying to figure out back there?" Jason asked as he pulled on to Aria's street. He turned to look at her with a soft smirk on his face, letting her know that she had been on to her game, but this time she had somehow managed not to upset him. Aria had a growing suspicion that she had gotten away with interrogating him tonight because she had kissed him earlier but she wasn't going to mention that to him. She quickly shook her head, trying to deny that that had been exactly what she was doing, but Jason simply laughed at her as he pulled up in front of her house. "Don't worry about it, Montgomery," he said before he leaned closer to her.

Aria was sure that he was going to kiss her again and she could not bring herself to push him away. She closed her eyes and waited for the, what should not be, familiar feeling of his lips pressed against hers. But she never felt that, instead she heard him chuckle and she opened her eyes to see him still sitting in his seat, but he was holding the umbrella in his hands, he had leaned toward her so that he could reach around his seat to grab the umbrella, "What did you think I was doing, Aria?" he asked, a light-hearted playfulness in his eyes that she hadn't seen in the longest time.

"Nothing," Aria muttered, feeling stupid, as she felt the blush rise on her cheeks and heard the distinct sound of another chuckle coming from Jason she sighed and felt even more stupid.

Jason leaned forward a second time and placed a soft kiss on Aria's cheek, "Go inside," he said, handing her the umbrella.

"You don't need to give this to me, Jason," Aria said, shaking her head and trying to hand the umbrella back to him. But he shook his head and held a hand up in the air, silencing her protests.

"This gives you an excuse to come back to my house again," he said with a smile before nodding toward her house again. "Now go." Aria nodded and unbuckled her seatbelt, she smiled at him once more before she opened the door and opened the umbrella before she stepped out into the rain. She turned to close the door behind her, but Jason gently grabbed her wrist, stilling her movements. "Good night, Aria," he said with a sweet smile.

Aria smiled at him, "Good night, Jason," she said before she shut the car door behind her and headed back into her house. She was fully prepared to have her parents jump on her the second she got into the house for leaving and not telling anyone where she was going, but when she walked in no one was downstairs, in fact, all the lights were off on the lower floor of her house. She locked the door behind her and took off her wet shoes so they wouldn't squeak as she snuck up the stairs, part of her was convinced that her mother was going to be sitting on her bed waiting to lecture her, but as she passed her parents room she could hear the distinct sound of two people breathing from their bed. No one had even realized that she was gone, Aria couldn't tell if she was happy or mad about that.

She was glad that she had managed to sneak into her house without getting in trouble, sure. But part of her was pissed at her parents for not even realizing that she was gone. A part of her blamed herself for what Mike was doing, if it weren't for all of the Ian drama her parents would have been able to focus more of their attention on her younger brother and she was glad that they were finally giving him the attention he needed. But a small part of her wanted to march into their room and wake them up just so that she could yell at them and tell them that they had two children they needed to pay attention to. Not just one at a time. She wanted to tell them she had been with Jason, she wanted to tell them what she had been doing with Ezra for the last year just so that she could show them how much they missed. But she shook her head, not only was that ridiculous but it was just plain stupid. She didn't need her parents paying more attention to what was going on in her life, not now anyway. It was better like this.

So instead she just walked into her room, preparing to change into her dry pajamas and just throw herself onto her bed. But there was a note sitting on her bed waiting for her. For a moment fear stabbed Aria's stomach. She was afraid that the note was from _A_. But then she realized how ridiculous it was to think that a complete stranger had snuck into her house to leave her a note on her bed. Her parents might not have noticed that she had snuck out but she liked to believe that they were at least observant to notice some freak trying to get into their daughter's room. She slowly walked toward the bed and picked up the notebook paper, unfolding it and to her relief reading a short note that had been written in Spencer's neat hand.

_Where are you? - S_.

Aria sighed in relief, now she knew that her friend was okay. She thought about texting Spencer or calling her, but decided against it. It was good enough just to know that she was okay at the moment. She would talk to her at school the next morning and by then she would have an excuse for where she had been the night before. So for now she simply changed into her pajamas and turned off her light before climbing into bed. She had just closed her eyes when her phone beeped, signaling a new text message. She rolled over in her bed to look at the screen.

_Everyone has their dirty little secrets, but I'm one of the few in town that knows his. Watch out. - A._

Aria stared at the text for a few moments, shivering in fear. And then she quickly got out of bed and ran across her room to grab his sweatshirt. She wasn't going to leave again, she had learned her lesson the first time, but she had just thought of something. Jason made her feel safe, maybe his smell would do the same thing. She threw it over her head before darting back to her bed, this time when she closed her eyes she buried her head inside the collar of his sweatshirt and breathed in deep, inhaling a now familiar smell. And with that she slipped into a deep and unworried sleep. All of the night's problems could wait until tomorrow.

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><p>And that's all folks!<br>I hope you liked this chapter. Let me know!  
>Reviews = Love.<br>-Addison


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